Lenin created Comintern to make the world revolution possible. He
died in January, right on Kim’s birthday. Kim did not cry, because
he was a communist, and he had just turned twenty-four. Born in
1900, he felt like being an ambassador of the new century: an enthusiastic
era of freedom, equality, and brotherhood of all the workers and peasants
in the world. Kim was named after his grandfather who was Mongolian, or
Korean, or Chinese—it did not matter since communists considered any
ethnicity to be part of the dark past. What mattered was one’s
social class and political correctness. Kim came from a class of
peasants, which was not as good as coming from the workers, but at least
not as bad as belonging to the “rotten intelligencia.”

Later that year the Comintern honored Kim with an important mission.
He was sent to South America to educate and direct local communists.
Ancient intertribal conflict in the small jungle country had acquired a
modern pastiche—hostile parties turned into “communists” and
“separatists”. The morning after Kim started working with his
contact he found himself kneeling on a precipice over a jungle river.
A Mauser was pressed against his temple.

“Who helped you? Name him,” demanded the aborigine. Kim
whispered something and the Mauser returned to its owner’s loincloth.
The aborigine turned to leave, but suddenly pushed his victim off the
precipice. Kim went straight down under water, then came to the surface
and swam away. His executioner shot after him once, but missed.

***

Not far from the river, jungle yielded to highway. On the side of
the road, a short man in a derby hat moved as quickly as the occasional
automobile. The man was roller skating, carrying a cane and a shabby
traveling bag. Soon he reached the capital of the country, a dusty
little town with crooked streets, and dropped into a bar. The
gramophone played a tango. He looked around and noticed a novice, a
fair-haired woman in a silvery dress. Her laugh sounded like a
crystal bell. He graciously led her to dance.

“I’m Ginger, from Chicago,” she said. “Are you American too?”

“Yeah. My name is Friedman. I used to impersonate Charlie
Chaplin in L.A. But business was slow. I’ve been to five
surrounding countries since then. Now I’ve got a regular gig in this
bar. By the way, do you mind being adored by a strolling actor?
I’m poor.”

Ginger laughed sweetly, “I love actors. I would like to be a film
actress. My late husband was a capitalist, you know. He left
me some money. Now communism sounds so exciting. So I came
here to see communists.”

“I thought their nest was in Russia,” said Friedman.

“Oh yes, I’d love to go to Russia, but my daughter Violet is only five.
She can’t travel that far and I have no relatives to leave her with.”

After the tango, she turned to leave. He caught her red-nailed
fingers, and kissed them lightly, tickling her with his mustache.

***

The next day Ginger and Violet, both fashionably dressed in low-waist
outfits and straw hats, headed to the countryside. There, local
communists commandeered a small clay house into a Lenin museum. A
line of visitors formed at the gate. It was hot and humid, people
stood in line licking their lips and sweating. Ginger felt dizzy.
She stepped in the shadow of the building, then timidly approached to peek
inside. There was a desk there with Lenin’s famous green lamp on it,
and a tattered leather sofa, too. Suddenly Ginger envisioned Lenin
himself lying on the sofa in his military jacket. His comrade-wife
Nadezhda Krupskaya in a faded brown dress and horn-rimmed spectacles was
lying side by side with him. Ginger realized she was hallucinating.
She stepped back. The heat became unbearable, making Violet cranky,
so Ginger grabbed her daughter and left.

It was late when Friedman was strolling back home after his nightly
performance in the bar. Fragrant night surrounded him with sights
and sounds of splendid jungle greenery. He approached his little hut
and bumped into a guy who was trying to nestle into a heap of dry palm
leaves by the clay wall. Friedman fearlessly stared at the
longhaired young Asian in dirty rags. The guy looked like a teenager
and was exhausted, hungry and desperate. He begged for help and
shelter in the actor’s hut. Softhearted “Charlie Chaplin” let him
in. His name was Kim, and the local separatist government wanted
him. Friedman assured him that since governments change often in
this part of the world, it was worthwhile to wait. A new day could
wipe out the separatists.

“Until then you can stay here,” he said.

“I lost connection with my contact person,” said Kim. “He might
already be dead. I have to find a new contact. Maybe I’ll have
to come out in disguise. Thanks for helping me, comrade.”

They shared a bowl of rice and Kim fell asleep on the floor. That is
how the strolling actor Friedman befriended a Comintern agent.

***

In the morning, the capital resounded with gunshots. Two dented
tanks moved across the square. Fresh leaflets in a local dialect and
peppered with exclamation points littered the ground. Communists
were in control again, and a group of separatists was taken to the Lenin
museum to be executed by a firing squad.

After noon, everything calmed down. Ginger went to the market place
much later than usual. It was hot, noisy, and crowded. Fresh
crabs died by now, greens weathered, bananas browned. She was lazily
picking cured melon, when an Asian girl with a shopping basket attracted
her attention. The girl was thin and flat-chested. Her long
braided hair shone like a black sun. At first, Ginger decided the
girl was someone’s maid, but her demeanor was not like that of a servant.
She walked graciously, like a tigress. Ginger watched her for awhile
trying to figure out what was so disturbing about this strange creature.
Suddenly she decided that this girl could be a spy, an enemy of the new
communist government. She turned around and hurried to the central
square. A red banner waved above the two-story building. She
entered and stood in front of the local commissar who was sitting at his
desk in a sweaty uniform.

“Most likely I am mistaken,” she started awkwardly, “but this person was
so strange-looking... this girl I just saw at the market place. I
know there are so many enemies around. I just wanted to warn you.
It’s not like I am sure about it, but I am your supporter. I support
communists.” The commissar watched her with blood-shot eyes, chin in
hand. He nodded doubtfully.

That night Ginger had a date with Friedman. She watched his
performance at the bar and laughed. He was charming. She
almost fell in love with him, although in general she preferred taller
men. Then they danced the tango again. He was a great dancer
being as short and light as a woman. They moved so perfectly
together that the bar owner put their drinks on the house for the night.
At dawn, when the bar was closed, Ginger refused to be taken home.
They just laughed and walked, and ended up at Friedman’s place. Kim
woke up to their loud drunken voices, and hurriedly hid in the pantry.
When they walked inside Ginger hugged and kissed Friedman right at the
threshold. She tried to take off her dress, but he pulled it up with
both hands, aware of Kim’s presence somewhere in the dark room.
After a short tug-of-war, Ginger’s dress became all twisted and wrinkled.
Confused and embarrassed, she left.

***

In the morning at the market place, she ran into the strange girl again.
Ginger decided to follow her and watch closely. The girl suddenly
turned around looking her straight in the eye. Ginger smiled
nervously, “Oh, I’m sorry to be in your way. I couldn’t help
noticing you for the second time here. Are you new to the town?”

The girl’s name was Kim. She was just a traveler in this country all
on her own, and so awfully charming and friendly. Soon the two of
them were shopping together. They talked and laughed, peeled ripe
bananas, and tried coconut milk. Kim was stronger than Ginger, so she
helped her to bring her purchases home. They agreed to shop together
again. In a few days, they became inseparable. Walking in the
jungle with her new friend, Ginger was overcome with unusual attraction to
this exotic female. She lowered her voice and asked nervously, “Have
you ever kissed a woman, Kim?”

Kim thought about it for a moment, then pulled up his disguising skirt.
Ginger laughed so hard, that she fell on the grass, pulling Kim along.
They made love in the middle of the emerald greenery. Sunlight
sifting through the light and dark leaves above them was gleaming on Kim’s
long black hair. Ginger’s short blond curls jumped up and down like
golden shavings covering her cheekbones and revealing them again, tanned
and rosy like flower petals. The sun was high and white. Then
it changed its angle and became low and golden. Thousands of tiny
shadows crossed the shimmering light. Glossy leaves reflected every
movement. Ginger could not stop caressing her wonderful lover.
Suddenly she remembered her report to the authorities, and started crying.

Kim listened to her confession silently. He stood up, put on his
drag outfit and left, brushing against hard and soft branches on his way.
Ginger ran after him. In her grief, she did not notice that he
walked straight into Friedman’s house. She followed him crying and
begging forgiveness. They reconciled inside the cool clay hut
laughing, crying and kissing each other like crazy. The sumptuous
jungle sunset shone in a small dirty window behind their backs.

***

On his day off, Friedman borrowed a car from the bar owner and took Ginger
and Violet for a joyride. Communists were patrolling the city.
Two dented tanks lumbered around the central square. A group of
local tramps, suspected in helping separatists, was escorted to the
red-bannered building for a quick trial. Suddenly a skirmish erupted
nearby. After the first gunshots rang, the joy riders left the car
and fled the square. The fight continued all day and the following
night. Separatists took over at dawn. They walked through the
city knocking at doors. They took half-dressed men out of their
homes and escorted them to the Lenin museum for execution. The
museum was badly vandalized—walls spotted with dirt and burn marks, the
front yard stained with urine. Gunfire resounded throughout the
city. Two tanks continued prowling the streets, but now separatists
were doing the steering.

Kim disappeared from Friedman’s hut without any explanations. A
series of explosions and arsons erupted in the town, turning it into a
deserted ruin. The separatist leader was riding around in the bar
owner’s car with a green-orange national banner attached to the spare
wheel on the back.

One morning a bomb killed him, strangely causing very little harm to the
car. Power automatically passed to the communists. The red
banner returned to the roof of the official building. Kim showed up
at Friedman’s hut at the end of the day. Friedman, Ginger, and
Violet were sitting around the table, for the hundredth time discussing
where he could be. Glancing at the door, and seeing Kim there as
dirty and exhausted as a stray cat, Ginger screamed and ran to him to hug
and hold him tight. Kim gently took her hands off his neck and sat
by the table. Ginger cried and hugged him while he gulped his rice.

Through the day different groups of separatists and their supporters were
shot in front of the Lenin museum. The reconstruction started
immediately after. The wounded commissar in a bloodstained bandage
supervised it, fighting his dizziness. He approved the newly arrived
plush sofa seized from the separatists, a substitute for the leather one
that vanished from the museum. The portrait of Lenin was gone, too.
An obscenity marked its place on the wall. Commissar thoughtfully
looked around. Then he picked up a brochure, and tore out a portrait
of Karl Marx. Overcome with giddiness, he took scissors and cut off
Marx’s long locks. Then he shortened Marx’s beard and wedge-shaped
it. He sighed, and painstakingly wrote LENINA under the cropped Marx
portrait, adding an extra letter to Lenin’s name, perhaps just out of
delirium. He looked at his work with satisfaction, and proudly glued
it to the wall.

***

Late that night an urgent council meeting took place at Friedman’s hut.
Kim was restless. Communists were at power again, but the commissar
did not know how Kim’s solo-terrorist acts helped to gain victory.
All his contacts were dead. Somewhere in the commissar’s desk,
Ginger’s report on him was filed. Should he show up, the trial would
be quick and unjust. He did not think it was wrong. In war
circumstances communists were supposed to act fast. It is just that
he was not ready to die. Kim decided to leave and get back to
Moscow. He would report to Comintern. They would send him
somewhere else. Ginger cried on his shoulder like a little girl.
But he made his decision.

Next morning they all drove in the bar owner’s dented car to the state
border deep in the jungle. Kim shook Friedman’s hand, kissed Ginger
and Violet, and crossed the border marked with green and orange lines on
tree trunks. He continued walking through the same jungle in the
direction of the same highway, only in a different, capitalist country,
not yet touched by progressive movements. “The victory of the world
revolution is unavoidable,” said Lenin in one of his famous speeches.
So one day all these countries shall become communist under the power of
workers and peasants. This thought made Kim march merrier ahead.
Sunspots ran over his shiny black hair. Friedman’s roller skates
hung over his shoulder. He will put them on once he reaches the
highway. In the next capital, he will find out about the ship.
He touched Ginger’s gift in his pocket, a tiny silvery purse filled with
rolled up bank notes. A long, long trip to Moscow lay ahead.

They sat silently in the car. Then Ginger said, “I have to go, too.
I have to follow him. He does not want it now, but he will later.
He does not realize that he needs me. I want to be there for him
when he will look for me. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” said Friedman looking aside, both hands on the steering wheel.

“We will be happy there, Kim and I.”

“And if not?”

“If not, then I’ll come back. I’ll find you both and we’ll live
together. Right, baby?”

“Right, Mom,” said Violet, absorbed with the actor’s watch on a thick faux
silver chain. “We’ll be waiting for you...”

2. After Stalin’s Death

...After Stalin’s death in 1953, among the political prisoners set free
from the zone, there was an old stooped Asian, dry and wrinkled as a
mummy, with gray bristle on his cheeks. His guard teased him, “Say
American spy, how did you survive a twenty-five years sentence? You
are one year short, right? Aren’t you lucky, that the Master died?”
The old man just grinned, not a single tooth left in his gums. The
guard opened the gate and continued, “I remember the accomplice in your
case. That Hollywood blonde. If you hadn’t dragged her along
they never would have exposed you. Women. Bitches! They
are killing us. You stupid American spy. But she paid her
price. It’s been like twenty years since she bit the dust. See
that cellblock? Right there. ‘Of heart failure’ if you know
what I mean.”